lways censuring England, and always hankering after
her. He had none of that irritable feeling, which made a great
contemporary of his angrily declare that _he_ could endure to hear "Ye
Mariners of England" sung, because of his own country's successes, some
time ago. They were gallant and conspicuous victories of the American
frigates; we do not grudge them. A fair fight should leave no rancour,
above all in the victors, and Dr. Holmes's withers would have been
unwrung by Campbell's ditty.

He visited England in youth, and fifty years later. On the anniversary
of the American defeat at Bunker's Hill (June 17), Dr. Holmes got his
degree in the _old_ Cambridge. He received degrees at Edinburgh and at
Oxford, in his "Hundred Days in Europe" he says very little about these
historic cities. The men at Oxford asked, "Did he come in the 'One Hoss
Shay'?" the name of his most familiar poem in the lighter vein. The
whole visit to England pleased and wearied him. He likened it to the
_shass caffy_ of Mr. Henry Foker--the fillip at the end of the long
banquet of life. He went to see the Derby, for he was fond of horses, of
racing, and, in a sportsmanlike way, of boxing. He had the great
boldness once, _audax juventa_, to write a song in praise of that
comfortable creature--wine. The prudery of many Americans about the
juice of the grape is a thing very astonishing to a temperate Briton. An
admirable author, who wrote an account of the old convivial days of an
American city, found that reputable magazines could not accept such a
degrading historical record. There was no nonsense about Dr. Holmes. His
poems were mainly "occasional" verses for friendly meetings; or humorous,
like the celebrated "One Horse Shay." Of his serious verses, the
"Nautilus" is probably too familiar to need quotation; a noble fancy is
nobly and tunefully "moralised." Pleasing, cultivated, and so forth, are
adjectives not dear to poets. To say "sublime," or "magical," or
"strenuous," of Dr. Holmes's muse, would be to exaggerate. How far he
maintained his scholarship, I am not certain; but it is odd that, in his
preface to "The Guardian Angel," he should quote from "Jonathan Edwards
the younger," a story for which he might have cited Aristotle.

Were I to choose one character out of Dr. Holmes's creations as my
favourite, it would be "a frequent correspondent of his," and of mine--the
immortal Gifted Hopkins. Never was minor poet more kindly